• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Katherine Dacey
    • MJ
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Derek Bown
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

a a'

A few links on a sick day

January 22, 2009 by MJ 11 Comments

I’m battling illness and stabbing blindly at a difficult review, so just a little link-blogging from me today!

First of all, I keep re-reading Ed Sizemore’s review of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys and find myself desperately wanting to read the manga. This has shot straight to the top of my to-buy list. Ed’s reviews are always very much from the heart, and it’s obvious how much he enjoyed this manga. Example number 100,000,347 of How Reviews Sell Manga.

Speaking of reviews selling manga, check out Michelle’s recent review of classic shojo manga A,A’. Made me want to buy that too!

At Manga Recon’s recent roundtable, the bunch of us talked about our hopes and fears for film adaptations of manga. I piped up in favor of adapting shorter, less-popular series that could grab someone other than the usual action flick crowd. Not that I expect that will ever, ever happen.

So, has everyone been following the conversation about manga at Hooded Utilitarian? I’ve avoided dwelling on it too much, because I keep getting angry, but one point rings true. I haven’t ever been able to get deep into western comics, and one of the reasons, I think, is that I find them visually overwhelming. So aside from the inaccurate (and insulting) aspect of the argument that simple = simplistic, I think there is something to the fact that I am a manga reader at least in part because the art is easier for me to follow. That is not the only reason by far, nor is it the biggest reason (which is actually that I find the stories being told in manga much more to my taste), but it is definitely a factor.

ETA: Of course I realize now that most of what I just said there has already been said much more eloquently and with less vitriol by Brigid Alverson.

Okay, gotta go. Be sure to check out Deanna’s post from earlier today!

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: 20th century boys, a a', manga

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework